German-American Discourse on Politics and Culture

March 30, 2011

Germany's decision to turn its back on its western partners with respect to military intervention in Libya is seen by many as a rupture in its foreign policy since the Adenauer era. The Westerwelle Doctrine would seem to dictate that Germany will seek out different international partners depending on how the domestic winds are blowing. Germany is happy to align with the US and Great Britain, as long as it doesn't require the use of force or the commitment of resources. Otherwise it will join with Russia, Brazil or India.

What was to become of this restless nation in the center of Europe that had spent its history shifting between east and west, that for so long entertained a special awareness of its historical role and that started two world wars?

The Germans have come up with three different answers to this question over the last 150 years. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck pursued an equilibrium, trying to preserve peace by preventing other nations from allying themselves against Germany. But even a diplomat as skilled as Bismarck wasn't able to maintain the precarious balance of power. The collapse of his system resulted in World War I. Adolf Hitler tried to solve the problem by trying to dominate Europe by force. That resulted in total defeat. Only with Adenauer's policy of firmly aligning West Germany with the West was the republic able to find its place in Europe and the world.

Does the new unilateralist "Westerwelle Doctrine" reflect a new strength and confidence for Germany on the world stage? Far from it, according to Neukirch. Rather, it reflects a fundamental cynicism and hypocrisy:

The Libyan controversy highlights this double standard. Westerwelle was at the forefront of Western politicians supporting the popular uprisings in Arab countries. But he left it to others to keep protesters from being massacred. That is simply hypocritical. One can't accuse the other European countries of being too slow in backing a weapons and oil embargo while at the same time withdrawing German ships that could enforce such an embargo.

(In the Ivory Towers on the Potomacthe mere mention of Westerwelle or the abstention decision is sufficient for unleashing a flood of comments: "He has only himself to blame for the anger. The Libyan action was a true multilateral decision which was first and foremost a humanitarian intervention." said Stephen Szabo, Director of the Transatlantic Academy in Washington. "What more does Berlin want? To me Westerwelle's is exhibiting a "Let the other guy do it" attitude. Germany is now the most important country in Europe, but it behaves more like Switzerland.)

I suspect that, other than the few die-hard Atlanticists, few in Washington are paying much attention to Guido and the Westerwelle Doctrine. In the scheme of things, he is simply irrelevant.

March 27, 2011

Huge setback for Angela Merkel and her CDU party. Baden-Wurttemberg had been a Christian Democrat bastion since 1953, and now it looks like it will be getting Green state minister. The chancellor made several strategic blunders ahead of the election:

Angela Merkel will share the blame for her Christian Democrats' election rout in the German conservative heartland despite her government's bid to portray itself as hapless victim of events in Japan and Libya.

Merkel handed the Greens victory in Baden-Wuerttemberg with her mishandling of the nuclear issue, likely resulting in the humiliation of the Greens installing their first state premier on CDU turf; but it is unlikely to cost the chancellor her job.

She is much diminished at home - even from within her own party. Ex-CDU defence minister Volker Ruehe was quoted on the cover of the conservative Welt am Sonntag newspaper as saying that abstaining on Libya was a "serious mistake of historic dimensions".

And she is much diminished on the world stage. The decision to abstain from a humanitarian intervention in Libya - playing to the pacifism of the German electorate - was seen as an act of betrayal by Germany's allies. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a member of the European Parliament, made this comment in a Huffington Post interview:

"Angela Merkel is Germany's great disappointment. She has no political orientation. She is a callous strategist, and obviously not very good at it. She has a tendency to change things around right before elections are coming up. She denied support for Greece because there were federal state elections in North-Rhine-Westphalia lying ahead, then she switched on nuclear energy as a result of a defeat in the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, and now she is playing the great pacifist with her foreign minister. It shows you very well that she is a technician of political power, but the spine is missing."

(At the edge of the Friday prayer in the East Libyan port city of Benghazi people voiced their views on Germany's abstention vote in the UN Security Council with respect to military intervention in Libya. "Chancellor Merkel should be ashamed," said one group of men, "Germany has abandoned us." Spiegel Online reporter Matthias Gebauer and other German reporters were again and again - sometimes aggressively - called to account for the position of the German government. "Frau Merkel should know how important freedom is," cried an older man, "the fall of the Berlin Wall was also massively supported by foreign nations." But now Germany has abandoned the Libyan people.)

Thilo Sarrazin's best-selling book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Abolishes itself") resonated so much with the German neo-Nazi NPD that they decided to use it as a campaign tool in the regional elections. In partcular, Sarrazin's crude racial theories on the genetic inferiority of certain minorities in Germany coincide perfectly with the political platform of right-wing extremists.

(Der Spiegel has learned that the NPD's effort to ride the Sarrazin popularity wave has ended for the time being due to court action. The publisher Random House objected to the use of the book's cover on campaign signs in the regional elections in Hesse. Next to the book cover were the words: "Sarrazin is correct". )

The message from Herr Sarrazin seems to be "I'm happy to take your money, but don't point out the political implications of my ideas."

On the subject of Sarrazin it is also worth reading this piece in The Guardian by the actress Aylin Selçuk, who has filed a lawsuit against Thilo Sarrazin for "incitement" (Volksverhetzung):

To make things worse, Sarrazin has above all achieved one thing: Germany is changing from being a country that used to attract immigrants into one that makes ethnic minorities feel they would rather emigrate. Exclusion and confrontation with prejudice are becoming a feature of daily life for many of us; we are made to feel like second-class citizens, in spite of having an education and a career. Racist comments are made socially acceptable; double standards prevail for freedom of expression.

(I feel deeply ashamed at the failure of our government and - alas - the initial applause by the red-green opposition with respect to this scandalous mistake. Foreign policy can't mean the we present a bella figura on the international stage and otherwise just play to the local elections, but rather to make the difficult strategic decisions, even when these are anything but popular in our domestic politics.)

As far as Germany gaining a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council - forget it!

(We can already see the damage for Germany. German policies have lost all credibility in the United Nations and the Middle East, Germany's claims for a permanent seat on the Security Council are scrapped for good, and one has to be fearful about the future of Europe.)

At a time of crisis Germany has abdicated its responsibility to lead in Europe:

(Germany seems to be frozen in an inward-looking provincialism at a time where its potential and leadership is needed more than ever. Sadly, we can forget about that.)

As if echoing Joschka Fischer's concerns, The New York Timesexpresses some alarm today about Germany's apparent isolationist path:

Driven by electoral pressures and Germany’s postwar aversion to war and nuclear power, Chancellor Angela Merkel has deeply strained relations with allies in the European Union and the NATO alliance, raising new questions about Germany’s ability to play a global role in foreign policy, even as its economic power and influence grow.

These foreign policy blunders are the responsibility of the chancellor - Angela Merkel. But perhaps her biggest mistake was when she elevated Guido Westerwelle to foreign minister.

March 22, 2011

We've seen her walking slowly with her shopping bags down the streets of Bochum, Bremen, or Berlin, a heavy woman wearing a headscarf, eyes downcast as she makes her way through the throngs of shoppers. She is one of Thilo Sarrazin's dreaded Turkish Koptuchfrauen, an alien life form taking up precious space on German soil. What about this pathetic woman could possibly be of interest to us?

Quite a bit, actually, in the hands of the Turkish-German writer Selim Özdogan. We learn that this woman has a name - Gül - ,that she has had a very rich life, and that she is the blacksmith's daughter: Die Tochter des Schmieds.

Özdogan takes us back to the Anatolian village of Gül's birth. We learn about Timur, the village blacksmith and Gül's father, a strong, proud man who takes a beautiful wife. Through hard work Timur accumulates enough to move his family to a nearby town - still light-years from the bright lights of Istanbul, but there is a cinema and a school. Özdogan introduces the reader to rhythms of village life, the joys and sorrows of the family, the small triumphs and setbacks. Poverty is rule, life is hard, but there are many happy moments.

Gül is the oldest child - and Timur's favorite. She is a shy - almost fearful - girl, so unlike her spirited sisters. She is afraid of succeeding in school and soon drops out. But Gül has an enormous capacity for hard work; she is exploited as a workhorse by her stepmother and mother-in-law and - much later - by her German employer. At fourteen she dutifully marries a much older man whom she doesn't understand, much less love. Despite her unhappy marriage, Gül would have been content to stay close her sisters and beloved father forever, but the modern world - in the form of Hollywood movies - intrudes. On the silver screen Gül's brooding husband sees the western luxuries - the cars, washing machines, clothes, whisky - that he will never be able to have if he stays in his town. The only option is to follow his friends and leave for cold and distant Germany. Die Tochter des Schmieds ends with Gül - the dutiful wife - leaving the only world she has ever known, the world of the blacksmith, for a new life in Germany.

The great Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote of the Gastarbeiter phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s:

Gesucht wurden Arbeitskräfte - und es kamen Menschen.

(We called for workers, and people came.)

Selim Özdogan has given us the story of one such person, and it a great pleasure indeed to know her.

March 19, 2011

Germany joined human rights champions Russia and China in abstaining from imposing a no-fly zone in Libya, turning away from its allies the United States, Great Britain and France. I'm sure Gaddafi would again like to express his gratitude to Berlin, but he has his hands full now that the rest of the world has descided to act. French and Canadian fighter jets are already flying over Benghazi and US missiles have taken out Gaddafi's air defense systems. But Germany's abstention at the UN was not really a surprise:

But when Gaddafi proved hard to topple, and his troops began a counteroffensive, retaking one city after another, Westerwelle didn't prove any more flexible in his stance. Over time, his scepticism about a no-fly zone grew into a firm "no". And as Britain and France lobbied for military action, a resurgent Gaddafi praised Germany's position. That fact alone should have been deeply embarrassing for Berlin.

Guido Westerwelle will be welcome in Tripoli - for the time being, anyway - but he may want to stay away from London, Paris, and Washington DC, where he is a laughingstock. And the commentary in the German press is equally harsh. Westerwelles Verweigerung blamiert unser Land (Westerwelle's Refusal Disgraces our Country") is the headline in Die Welt:

(Germany's affront to the Europeans and Americans, but also to the Arab states who stand behind the resolution and even agree to participate in military actions to protect the Lybian civilian population - revealed only isolationist stubbornness, self-righteousness and strategic confusion. These are signs of regression in the national pacifist narrow-mindedness that threatens Germany, led by its Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.)

March 17, 2011

The nuclear disaster in Japan spirals out of control and has created a new political reality in Germany. After ramming though an extension of the useful life of Germany's aging nuclear power plants, the chancellor has abruptly changed course - at least temoporarily:

After taking office, Dr Merkel’s administration set aside a proposal to make Germany nuclear-free by 2020, extending the life of ageing nuclear plants into the mid-2030s.

Dr Merkel reacted yesterday to the growing pressure with a temporary moratorium, during which she has called for a discussion about safety standards and Germany’s continued lack of a storage facility for nuclear waste.

“We are launching a safety review of all nuclear reactors . . . and all reactors in operation since the end of 1980 are to be idled a three-month moratorium,” said Dr Merkel.

“This moratorium will run until June 15th, after which we will know how to proceed.”

What is the magic of June 15? Will the regulatory bodies and scientific community give these old nukes a clean bill of health (Persilschein) in 90 days? The decision appears to be politically motivated, as the CDU/FDP coaltion faces an uphill batlle in the upcoming state elections. The majority of Germans polled are uneasy about nuclear power, and the Green Party is the beneficiary.

(Edmund Lengelder, director of the Otto-Hug Steel Institute in Munich was blunt in his assessment in an inverview on German Public Radio: "Up to three days ago all nuclear power plants in Germany were safe. And then something happened in Japan and suddenly we think about shutting down the 7 most risky power plants. That's just a bad joke, or else proof of the unreliability and lack of trust in politics. ")

As tempting as it is to poke fun at the German Left, the U.S. suffers from a different strain of the same denial: The Germans, at least, have a plan, even though it’s unrealistic. We’ve ignored the problem altogether

March 14, 2011

A couple of weeks ago I wrote to Congressman Mike Michaud (Democrat - Maine) concerning the foreclosure activities of Deutsche Bank and demanding a Congressional hearing. You can read my letter here.

Congressman Michaud sent me the following message today:

Dear David:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the JP Morgan Chase hearings and your concerns with Deutsche Bank AG. Maine has unique needs that often require bi-partisan solutions, focused attention and thinking outside of the box. That is why I appreciate your taking the time to get in touch with me and why I come home to Maine nearly every weekend.

According to JP Morgan Chase's own records, they overcharged more than 4,500 active duty military personnel on their home loans and wrongly foreclosed on 18 of them. This is a gross violation of the protections our country provides to those that serve. I opposed the bank bailout, and these actions are the height of corporate irresponsibility for a bank that received billions of dollars through bailouts.

Following this hearing, JP Morgan Chase has begun to take steps to correct their behavior by significantly enhancing its programs to help military and veteran customers, including lowering interest rates for eligible borrowers. I will be closely monitoring the implementation of this new program to make sure that it lives up to its promises.

I am concerned by reports that the Deutsche Bank AG may have followed similar practices and taken advantage of our military members and taxpayers. I will be bringing these concerns to the attention of the Chair of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and please know that I will keep your comments in mind as I continue to follow this situation.

Thank you again for sharing your views with me. In addition, I also provide occasional email updates on a range of issues affecting people in Maine. If you would like to receive this information, please visit my website at http://www.michaud.house.gov/enewsletter and sign up for my email newsletter. I appreciate the opportunity to represent Maine in Congress.

The good news is that Germany is a model of tolerance compared to Hungary and Poland. The bad news is that intolerance towards immigrants in general and Muslims in particular is widespread throughout Europe. These are the findings of a comprehensive study by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) that was recently published. The study examined attitudes towards different racial groups, gays and lesbians, Jews, and women. The results are pretty depressing across the board and the political implications are alarming.

The study can be downloaded in pdf format in both English and German here.

More than 50% of Germans expressed anti-Islam prejudice, while the percentage in Poland, the Netherlands, and Portugal was even higher. The overwhelming majority of Poles and people in Hungary agreed with the statement that "Jews are taking advantage of the fact that they were victimized during the Nazi period," and even 48% of Germans had similar anti-Semitic views. Intolerance of gays and lesbians is especially pronounced in Catholic Poland, while 30% of Europeans across the continent believed in a "natural hierarchy of races."

What does this strong evidence of prejudice and intolerance mean politically? Large segments of the population are especially susceptible to right-wing populist rhetoric (witness the celebrity of Thilo Sarrazin in Germany and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands). There is a strong dissatisfaction with democratic institutions and parliamentary maneuverings coupled with a deep desire for a "strong leader" who stands above the political parties.

"According to the study, citizens are not fundamentally disinterested in politics but feel subjectively detached from the political system. Gains made by right-wing populism show that citizens are blaming immigrants, Muslims and other minorities rather than directing their ire against the established political system. This underlines the need for intervention and prevention strategies to combat the collective formation group-focused enmity directed against “the others”. Taking the challenge of increasing diversity in Europe seriously at the political level also means acknowledging that all members of society need political participation and involvement."

Just what these "intervention and prevention strategies" might be is not mentioned in the study.

March 11, 2011

Recently the New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini put together a list of the top ten composers of all time. German composers fared well, capturing the two top spots (Bach and Beethoven). Altogether there were 3 German and 2 Austrian composers in the top ten. (The list can be viewed here).

Tommasini was triumphant with his top ten effort, but when Dean Rader of the San Francisco Chronicle attempted to duplicate the effort with the top ten poets of all time the results were less than satisfactory. Not one German poet (or German-language poet) made the cut. Nor is there one French or Russian poet on the list, while three Americans made the top ten. Most surprising was Rader's top pick: the number one greatest poet of all time is Pablo Neruda (beating out Shakespeare!). Neruda?? You must be kidding!

But Rader has compelled me to create my own top ten list of German (language) poets. In compiling this list - which I don't believe is very controversial - I used Dean Rader's own method:

"I rather informally carried three interrelated criteria in my head as I built the list--how thoroughly a poet's work has permeated our culture and become part of its fabric, the degree to which a poet has influenced other poets, fiction writers, artists, screenwriters, and critics, and the ability of a poet to make: to craft out of the chaos of emotion and language, something artful."

Based on these criteria, here is my list. I hope to elaborate on some of these picks next month, as April is National Poetry Month in the US: